Coos County deserves maturity from its elected leaders but unfortunately, Commissioner Melissa Cribbins has sunk to a low rarely seen beyond high school. Cribbins has a thread running on her personal Facebook page relating to a Don Gurney ad published last week in The Sentinel with a misspelled word. The ad is admittedly a disaster and the misspelling typical of the types of errors littering this particular paper. To be clear, Gurney had nothing to do with the ad, never vetted the ad and the ad is not paid for by the Committee to Elect Don Gurney, a point Cribbins should be experienced enough to notice. Considering Cribbins received some free advertising from Knife River on an electronic reader board last spring that met with a fair amount of derision, one would think she might appreciate the predicament.

Even if Gurney had approved the ad, however, it would not condone Cribbins’ conduct. She must be worried about John Sweet’s chances of reelection but to devolve to this level speaks volumes about her character.

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This is not the first snarky remark about Gurney that Cribbins has tossed out through social media once tweeting that Gurney is the “self-professed CBWR historian” even though he’s never made the claim. Cribbins isn’t the only elected official to behave like the Plastics in Mean Girls. Our supposedly neutral head of elections, Coos County Clerk Terri Turi, (she’s responsible for counting the votes), couldn’t resist joining the pecking session with a short but nonetheless impolitic, “Oh my.”

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Coquille City Councilman Loren Wiese adds his two “cents” worth

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The one who takes the cake, however, is Coquile City Councilwoman Susan Heaton who succeeds in insulting just about everyone.Screen Shot 2014-10-20 at 1.20.45 PM

Several other Sweet supporters avail themselves of the opportunity to behave like high school kids, including Al Pettit for which this type of behavior is characteristic.  Pettit, by the way, is rumored to be running a write-in campaign for Coos Bay City Council.

Throughout it all, our esteemed commissioner takes the time to  “like” each comment because Cribbins is just so classy. Shame on her.

 UPDATE: Cribbins has since hidden the offending thread linked to above. Below are screenshots taken before the thread was removed.

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